


In Sickness and In Health

by RayneSummer



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, many fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-07 19:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7726489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RayneSummer/pseuds/RayneSummer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nate & Elena | three married drabbles {pre-A Thief's End} of a 'normal' life<br/>-<br/>//For better or worse, in sickness and in health\\</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. With Family

Nate grunted in effort as he shouldered open the front door - which kept refusing to be lodged open - and made his careful-ish way down the hallway towards the lounge and kitchen, the heavy box in his arms blocking most of his view.

“Here ya… go…” He dumped the box unceremoniously on the couch and groaned dramatically, stretching his back. “Ugh, that thing weighs more than a horse.”

Elena, who stood in the kitchen unpacking food, glanced over at her husband in amusement. “Have you ever carried a horse?”

He shrugged. “Can’t remember. Might of.”

Nate grinned at her and she rolled her eyes, attention back on the kitchen sorting. Behind her, Nate eyed the dumped box unenthusiastically as he considered going to get another. There were a hell of a lot of them in the van Sully had rented for them – a load more crap than he could ever remember having, even with Elena’s stuff too.

With a sigh, he turned to head back down the hall, and was immediately met with Sully entering the room, carrying two canvas bags; one over each shoulder. He dropped them beside the couch with a dull thud and raised an eyebrow at Nate.

“Kid, I know I said I’d help out, but that doesn’t mean you can just leave everything to me,” Sully said, rubbing a shoulder. Nate gave him an apologetic pat on the arm while stepping around him, to get back down the hall and grab some more boxes before any more lectures could start.

He chuckled quietly to himself as he dragged the front door open again and heard Sully grumble about something, either to himself or directed at Elena, and most likely about him. Well, in honesty, Nate hadn’t exactly made his best friend help out; he had offered.

Although this probably wasn’t what he’d had in mind. Outside the small, comfortable house, Nate headed for the red medium sized-van that was haphazardly parked in the drive, bonnet first. He stood outside the open-doored back and scanned the luggage still to carry in.

It was still a lot, even though Nate could have sworn they had been at this for hours already. A couple of hours, at least. Moving into a house was infinitively more complex than just moving apartments like he had done his whole life.

“Need a hand, sweetie?” Elena smirked at her husband’s defeated look regarding transferring more boxes inside, and snuck an arm around his waist from behind once she reached him. “What’s the problem, Sherlock?”

Nate gave her another half-fond half-exasperated look at yet more name-calling. “Are you going to talk smack to me all the time now?” he asked, absently wondering if it was going to rain in the night, because if not they could just leave some of the stuff outside and drag it in come morning.

Elena continued to grin as she moved her hand underneath her husband’s shirt and gently raked her nails up his back, making him shiver in pleasure. She put the other hand on the back of his neck, resting it there.

“Well, we are going to be alone now… just us, all the time…” She trailed off, tracing fingers down his back again. Nate hummed as if thinking on her point.

She heard him sigh as if arguing was too hard. “Yeah, looks like it. I guess I’ll just have to-“ He turned around with barely jousting her arms on him, and locked her in his own embrace, smiling down mischievously at her face. “I’ll have to shut you up.”

Without pause, Nate pressed his lips to hers, strong but gentle, and Elena returned the kiss with passion, deepening it as her hand on his neck moved up into his hair, keeping him against her and slowly rubbing his scalp (what she knew could calm him if needed).

They broke away, breath warm on one another’s faces. Nate gave her a swift kiss on the nose, making her giggle for a second like a schoolgirl.

“I hate to be the responsible one,” he sighed, slowly drawing away but not letting go of her, “but I’m pretty sure we ought to get all the stuff in before the sun goes down.”

Elena sighed too, and glanced past Nate at the boxes still littered in the back of the van. She hummed vaguely in agreement, only a little disappointed, as she let her arms around Nate drop so they could get back to the task at hand.

Nate let her go as well, but then grabbed one of her hands and leaned in to speak in her ear. “Then we can get this done later, in our own time.”

She nodded, glancing to the side at her husband with a gleam in her eye. “Oh, I like the sound of that, sailor,” she replied quietly.

He winked once, which was more hilarious than sexy, and let go of her hand to reach in and heft another heavy box into his arms. Elena watched him appreciatively as he began up to the front door of their house.

“Sailor, huh?” Before attempting to tackle the persistently-closing door again, Nate glanced back at his wife, an eyebrow raised. He paused for effect before adding, “that would be so much better if I hadn’t heard Sully’s stories about the Navy like a thousand times.”

Elena shook her head in fondness and waved him away. “Go on with you. And in that case, don’t tell Sully I said it!” She called after him, then just stood and watched in amusement as Nate kicked the door in some kind of attempt at opening in.

She picked a lighter-looking box (labelled ‘pillows’) as Nate kicked the door again and cursed at his probably bruised toes before the offending object was pulled open from the other side by a bothered Sully.

“Goddammit Nate, can you not open the goddamn door yourself?” He scolded as said adopted son shifted the box in his arms and started into the house, muttering something that might have hinted at some kind of apology.

The two bickering boys’ voices faded down the hallway before Elena brought up the rear, elbowing the door back open just before it slammed again. She lightly jogged up the stairs to deposit the related box at the top, then retreated back down and headed into the kitchen.

Nate, looking a bit disgruntled, was sat on the couch – or rather, squeezed inbetween boxes and stuff on the little pillow space left – rubbing at his unhappy toes that had collided with the door.

He perked up when Elena entered to head over to the counter where she’d been unpacking kitchen utensils, and quickly got up, injured foot forgotten, to linger beside her (rather than go back outside and get yet another box to bring in).

“Where’d Sully go?” She asked, sparing him a mildly amused glance. Nate rolled his eyes and jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the sliding door to the back garden.

“For a smoke. Though I don’t actually know why he’s so annoyed.”

Elena hummed in thought as she piled two saucepans on top of the frying pan and carefully slid them into a low cupboard. “Maybe he’s upset,” she suggested.

Nate frowned at her. “I doubt it. Judging by the few weeks we stayed at his while this place was getting ready, he’s probably glad to be rid of us.” He smirked a little to himself at the memories. Elena managed to resist rolling her eyes.

“Hardly; I mean, it’s not like we’re going to be next door any more – LA is definitely more than a ‘little way’ from Florida, Nate.” She dropped a spatula into a draw with a whisk before turning back to him expectantly.

He looked thoughtful, and glanced at the back door for a second. “Well, he’ll be fine,” Nate concluded in a somewhat confident tone, undercut by some hesitance. “Anyway, it’s not like I can join him on his shady business deals any more.”

Elena moved closer to him and put her arms around her husband in a loose embrace. He looked at her, doubt from his tone showing in his expression, so she smiled reassuringly instead of adding to his worries. “I’m sure you’re right.”

“’Course I’m right.” He held her close and kissed the top of her head, calmed by her presence. In the chaos of moving, getting a nearby job – an actual, real, job at a salvage company recommended by one of Elena’s old contacts/friends – he hadn’t thought too much about living without Sully a short drive away. It was almost daunting.

Still, there were always phones, and e-mails, and other ways of keeping in touch. It wasn’t like they were just going to ignore him and get on with their own thing of a ‘normal life’.

Nate focused back on Elena as she poked him lightly in the chest. “So, are you ready to do this?”

She nodded towards the lounge, but signified everything that the house stood for: giving up treasure hunting and shady partnerships for good, for a start, and then everything else that came with living normally, like bills and jobs and grocery shopping.

He smiled and kissed her lightly, lips tender against one another. “I promised this since the day I said ‘I do’.” He paused, then added with a hint of pride, “in fact, it’s in the vow.”

Elena raised an eyebrow at her dork of a husband. “Oh, is it now?”

“Yep. You know, the whole thing-“

“You mean ‘in sickness and in health’?” She interrupted, a smile spreading across her face as Nate gave her a look.

“Well actually I was going to say ‘for better or worse’,” he iterated.

She stood on tiptoe to press a short kiss on his lips before drawing back, a sparkle in her eye. “And this is the better.”

Nate nodded with a soft smile and started leaning in again. “Yeah. This is the better.”


	2. In Sickness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marriage means in sickness as well as health, even when your partner has a knack for ending up on the worst end of things.

Elena Fisher-slash-sort-of-Drake woke sometime in the early morning on a saterday – in her opinion, far too early to be willing to get out of bed and do something with one of the only free days in the week. Her job often meant lots of stay-at-home writing, to be fair, but also Nate generally didn’t have to go into the salvage office at weekends, which meant he would be at home with her. And that made all the difference.

She blinked up at the ceiling of their still relatively new house as she wondered what had woken her at this ungodly hour; she couldn’t deny she’d been hoping they could just spend a lot of the day relaxing together, maybe doing some work from the sofa if she got bored.

There was a sound from downstairs, a sort of thump, and Elena sat up with a frown. Realising that was obviously the reason for her being awake, she looked to the other side of the bed where it had been slowly dawning on her that is was empty.

Well, at least that explained the noises. Or, at least, she hoped it did, Elena thought a little grimly as she pulled back the covers off her torso and swung her legs around to sit on the edge of the bed, rubbing her eyes. She stretched her back and yawned widely, still unsure if she wanted to be up right now, before only slightly grudgingly standing and retrieving her dressing gown on the back of the closed door.

“Nate? That you?” She called after opening the door and stepping into the hallway, listening for a reply. She started down the stairs before a filtered coughing sound reached her. “Nate?”

Elena padded across the downstairs hall at the bottom of the stairs and glanced into the lounge-and-kitchen to determine it empty, then knocked on the nearby bathroom door. Her husband hadn’t vocally replied, which pretty much brought her to one conclusion.

“You’re sick, huh,” she said quietly as she pushed open the unlocked door, revealing Nate slumped on the floor against the tiled wall next to the toilet. He looked up wearily as she stepped into the smallish space, not bothering to close the door behind her since there was no one else around, and crouched down in front of him like one would a child.

He shrugged, unwilling to admit he was ill, as Elena gently put the back of her hand to a cheek then felt his forehead with a sympathetic sigh. She resisted saying the statement ‘you’re pretty hot’ which would almost certainly be met with amusement from Nate, and instead reworded it as, “you’ve got a hell of a fever there.”

Nate mumbled an unintelligible reply and she carded a hand through the sweaty hair at the top of his head in a calming gesture.

“Hey, I know we haven’t been here that long, but you know that there are two bathrooms upstairs, right?” She raised an eyebrow at him with an amused glint in her eye. “You didn’t have to come all the way down here to throw up.”

Glancing up at her with a rather unamused look, Elena felt he’d roll his eyes at her if he didn’t feel so sick and dizzy. In honesty it was almost funny, but it would be mean to laugh at his predicament. Especially now she was getting the adorable pout that made him look like a kicked puppy.

He took a breath to reply in a coherent way but was interrupted by a bout of painful coughing, bringing a hand up in a weak attempt to muffle the hoarse sound. Elena made a sympathetic sound and waited patiently.

“Came down to get a drink,” he managed to mutter after a moment, and she almost winced at his subsequent laboured breathing. “But it didn’t go well.”

She hummed in agreement, still stroking his hair, and vaguely wondered if they had a thermometer somewhere in here. Although, if she recalled right, there was almost definitely in a cupboard of the bathroom in their bedroom.

Elena sighed, again – it was that kind of day. She slowly straightened up and extended her hands out to Nate when he blinked sadly up at her.

“Come on,” she said gently, and gestured out the hallway. “Let’s get you somewhere a bit more comfortable to be ill at.”

Nate considered her hands for a bit before shifting to reach them, groaning a little in a quiet tone and she helped him stand. They made their slow way into the hall and Elena went to turn right, heading for the upstairs and their bedroom, but Nate stopped moving and gave her what could only be described as a pitiful look.

“What?” She really was set to be patient with him, given that he seemed really sick, but it was already almost taking an effort.

He sniffed, grimacing at his sore nose, before speaking. “I just… don’t want to be lying upstairs while you’re working down here.”

It would be a lot sweeter if the reasons for it didn’t include not wanting to get up at all, but Elena obliged nonetheless. It would be nice to have Nate still in the room with her, anyway.

“Alright. Come on, you.” She redirected them to the left and towards the lounge sofa, which admittedly was much less further to drag a sick Nate. Said ex-thief groaned a little as she helped him drop onto the sofa, and started coughing again into his arm.

She patted his head in a gesture of solidarity before stepping back. “Hang on a second,” she told him, and quickly left before he could give her his puppy-eyes look to make her stay right next to him.

Elena jogged back upstairs and into their bedroom, entering the bathroom there and rummaging through the cuboards to find the thermometer she was almost completely sure was there. It thankfully only took a minute to find, tucked behind a rather huge box of plasters, and she grabbed it before heading back to her miserably sick husband.

“Here. Put this in your mouth. For me,” she added when Nate gave the object a thoroughly unhappy look. At that, he couldn’t help glancing up at her in slight amusement, and she knew if he was healthy they wouldn’t be hearing the end of the way she phrased that.

But if he was healthy he wouldn’t need a thermometer, so she took his momentary distraction to pop it in his mouth, and gave Nate a stern look when he made a face, warning him not to dare spit it out.

In fact, she just stood there over him with her arms crossed for a minute as he continued to stare unhappily at the blank TV, and Elena made a mental note to turn it on for him when she’d finished her ministrations.

The instrument beeped brightly, signalling its result, and Elena took it out of Nate’s mouth, giving him a pat on his sweaty head for being a good boy. She hesitated a little at the reading; it was actually quite worryingly high, informing her about a temperature of 104.2 degrees.

She eyed him in concern, wondering whether to act now rather than wait and end up with an emergency on her hands – and that wasn’t even being overdramatic, since Nate had the uncanny ability of often underestimating how bad things are.

Still, despite the high reading, he wasn’t delirious or hallucinating (and hell did she know what that looked like) so Elena decided to leave it be but keep a very close eye on him. Chances were they would end the day with a cold bath and an ambulance ride, but to be honest that was just how life with Nate usually went.

While Elena had been thinking this through, Nate had just been staring at her with over-bright eyes, only slightly flushed despite the high-grade fever. He met her eyes as she scanned him and smiled unevenly in some kind of attempt to reassure her.

She shook her head in fondness and bent down to give him a quick kiss on his hot forehead. “You’re in the danger zone,” she said almost ominously as she straightened, and Nate tilted his head to look up at her in some confusion.

“What-?” He tried to ask, but got interrupted by more harsh coughing, putting the crook of his elbow over his mouth in an attempt to muffle it. When it had finished he leaned back on the pillows of the sofa and groaned.

Elena sighed in sympathy and patted his cheek before going over to the kitchen counter, putting the thermometer down and looking for soup or something to make him while she talked.

“Your temperature is just over 104, which is dangerously high,” she explained briefly, and turned to look at him severely while adding, “and because it’s you, I’m not going to shove you to the doctor’s right now, but if anything changes we’re going straight to the ER.”

Nate opened his mouth to reply but started coughing again instead, so he flashed her a thumbs-up to show he understood. Elena nodded, satisfied, and turned her attention back to the counter, opening a top cuboard that revealed a tin of creamy mushroom soup.

“This’ll do,” she muttered to herself as she took the tin out and put it down on the counter. Then she abruptly turned and walked back to the sofa, where Nate eyed her with a wary attitude.

She perched herself on the arm of the seat next to Nate’s head and poked his red nose when he craned his neck to look up at her, getting a disgruntled expression in reply. She grinned back at him.

“Okay, listen,” Elena started in her best don’t-argue-with-me voice - which wasn’t that different from her normal voice if she was honest. “I’m going to make some soup and get you some meds and you’re going to eat it all.”

Nate sniffed and squinted at her. “All of it?”

“Yes. Take all the meds and have all the soup. It’s the only way to get better.”

“I don’t think that’s-“

“I’m not a nurse but I am your wife and I say it is,” Elena declared, standing up.

He nodded sagely. “Yes, dear.”

“Good. Now lie there like a good boy while I go and get some medicine.” She left the room to find some fever-reducing pills or something, feeling pretty pleased with herself. Nate could and definitely would soon get incredibly whiny, but for now she had the lead.

Did everything have to be a contest with her husband? Generally, yes. She’d accepted that when they married, because nothing worthwhile was easy.


	3. In Health

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't as good as the previous two, and sorry for the wait, but I wanted to get it done and nevertheless I'm pleased with the portrayal of their relationship, shown in the beauty that it is.

Elena hummed to herself as she inserted her key into its lock and opened the door of the house she and her husband owned. Although seemingly ‘obvious’, it gave her a lovely feeling to refer to such things as hers – Nate had admitted a similar sensation of satisfaction when considering things like the house they’re chosen and bought together.

Talking of said husband, Elena could hear sounds from the lounge as she entered the hallway, closing the door behind her with the hand not holding a grocery bag. She frowned before heading towards the end of the hall, since to her knowledge Nate was at the Salvage office for most of the day.

“Nate? What’re you doing home?”

She felt slight glee at seeing Nate jump in his sitting position on the sofa when she entered and announced her apparently unknown presence. But the TV seemed pretty loud now Elena was in the room, so it was fair to assume he hadn’t hear the front door.

As she walked over to the kitchen counter to unpack the groceries, Nate stood up with controller in hand and switched off the tele with a button press before dropping it back on the sofa cushions. He briefly stretched before wandering over to where Elena was taking various items out of her bag.

“What’cha get?” He asked, leaning casually against the work surface beside her. Elena gave him a suspicious look at the sudden interest of shopping. Usually Nate would do a lot to get out of the chore.

“I asked you a question first,” she pointed out while putting tins in a cuboard above her, then turned to Nate, “how come you’re home now?”

He mock-sighed as if offended. “It’s great to see you too.”

“You know what I mean.”

She was glad she’d resisted rolling her eyes because she would have missed the adorable grin on her husband’s face.

He considered a can of halved peaches placed on the counter before replying, “Jameson sent me home early. Said it was too nice a day to be sitting in a ‘box’ – his words, and I quote – doing ‘dumb paperwork’.”

Elena took the can from Nate’s hands and placed it beside other tins in the high cuboard then looked back at Nate with a smile.

“Really? I mean, it is a nice day. Maybe he was worried you’d get heatstroke again,” she said, a twinkle of mischief in her eyes. Nate gave her a look.

“That was one time,” he muttered, glancing away with pretend grumpiness.

She grinned as she folded up her reusable shopping bag then hit Nate lightly on the arm with it. “Well, we all know you’re not the most careful of people.”

“I’m plenty careful when I need to be,” he protested, following her back down the hallway. Elena put the folded-up bag on the small table just inside the door and continued upstairs, puppy of a husband still following.

She glanced over her shoulder at him with the grin still on her face to show she was still amused. “You keep telling yourself that, dear,” she said kindly, then looked away before she burst into laughter. Nate sighed.

“I can’t believe you’re so mean to me.”

Elena couldn’t help giggling at that and pressed a couple of buttons on the dryer that currently contained a pair of Nate’s trousers and a shirt that he’d been wearing pretty much the whole time he was ill the other week. She was determined to thoroughly clean the clothing in an attempt to keep any lasting germs away.

Nate had taken up a position against the wall behind her as she fiddled with the machine, pouting about his wife’s mock-meanness. So when Elena turned to see him like that, she laughed again and stepped towards him to plant a kiss on his face before heading back downstairs.

“So if Jameson says it’s too hot to be inside,” Nate started as he followed Elena back down the stairs, thoroughly perked up from the kiss, “then we should be out too, shouldn’t we.”

Elena stopped so abruptly in the hallway that Nate nearly walked into her, and took the opportunity to wrap his arms around his wife. She tilted her head and considered him with a smile on her face.

“What were you thinking?” She asked, her hands on his shoulders. Nate pretended to think, lips pursed.

“How about a walk?”

She raised an eyebrow. “A walk? Well, where to?”

“Does it matter?”

He grinned back at her and Elena raised herself onto her tip-toes to kiss his lips face-to-face, drawing back to smile again at him. “Sounds good to me.”

There was a pause where they both just looked at each other, as locked in embrace as they were in love. To a stranger’s eye the two would seem like a newly married couple, excited and enthralled about spending their lives together forever.

Although that wasn’t quite the truth, it wasn’t far from the way they left the house together, hand in hand and talking in the way one discusses topics with a friend who they know will truly listen.

While Elena locked the door, Nate watched her back, though there was little to threaten them in the quiet suburban street. But old habits die hard and lifelong vigilance isn’t something to be slept away, not in one night or many.

Nevertheless, with no cause for concern around, the two quickly immersed themselves in another conversation, Elena’s smile causing her to nudge Nate, who in turned pretended to stumble into her back, swinging their entwined hands out the way for a second.

Her laugh as she staggered for a split-moment, Nate easily supporting her from actually falling, inflicted the widening grin on his face and they looked at each other’s bright eyes, breathless with happiness.

They continued to stroll down the calm street, Elena using her free hand to gesture as she talked, Nate just watching her with a look of almost reverence on his face.

Such a look was one of many expression they shared; it was the wordless amazement of the other being real and physically beside them. It was a look that showed every ounce of beauty in their love, a look of realisation how goddamn lucky them were to have each other, still.

They were both still learning how to fit into the ‘domestic lifestyle’ and that was to be expected. But working together, as partners through to lovers, both Nate and Elena were sure they could make this work.

After all, they deserved all the quiet moments the days could give. And walking down a calm street in the warm sun was almost the essence of the forgiveness and loyalty they had built their love on.

Because those three devotions in their little family had taught them everything they know.


End file.
